The year-end top 50 list is a staple of music publications everywhere. There are many reasons for this, from the credibility such a list brings, to the crowd-pleasing nature of lists, to the pseudo-autistic need need for order shared by most music obsessives. Mostly, though, these lists are everywhere because they’re a lot of fun to put together. This year at FP we had more contributors than ever before, and though we reached a broad consensus about several of the albums on the list, there were enough surprises from each writer that each of us found ourselves spinning great albums that we’d somehow overlooked. All week we’ll be counting down our favorite records of the year, ten entries a day, with full-album streams whenever they are available. We hope you find a few records you missed, and a lot of records you’ll like.
50. Netherfriends - Middle America
The one man troubadour Shawn Rosenblatt recruited a few friends for the first LP of his 50 Songs 50 States project. While the coasts may consider the topic of this album to be filler, it’s in the in-between where Shawn finds meaning, that even the beauty and simplicity of so-called flyover country can be as malevolent and unforgiving as any urban landscape. -Andrew Hertzberg
49. Andy Stott - Luxury Problems
Following last year’s release of two excellent EPs, Passed Me By and We Stay Together, Andy Stott completed his transition from heavier techno to ambient dub withLuxury Problems. With tracks featuring haunting vocals from Alison Skidmore, Stott’s former piano teacher, Luxury Problems churns along with a heavy bass, making the album fit for headphones or for the club. Standout tracks like “Numb” and “Sleepless” provide an ominous urgency to music that, overall, took a long time to develop into its producer’s cohesive sound. The wait was certainly worth it. -Jordan Mainzer
Andy Stott – “Numb”
48. Thee Oh Sees - Putrifiers II
While there’s no shortage of garage-tinged rock leaking out of the sewers of San Francisco, Thee Oh Sees are not only entirely prolific, but have naturally captured their live energy and intensity on record as well. Proof you can have fun and be creative at the same damn time. -AH
47. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Mature Themes
Mature indeed. Ariel Pink has been composing his unique style of collage-pop for ten years, but not until Mature Themes has he managed to harness his maverick impulses into a coherent whole. While 2010′s excellent Before Today hinted at what Pink could do were he letting to let his more conventional songwriting tendencies mix with his wildly experimental side, Mature Themes stands as a perfect synthesis of the two, full of endearingly bizarre pop gems and disturbing sleaze-bucket freakouts. Closing the show with a brilliant cover of the Donnie & Emerson R&B classic “Baby,” Pink proves that, even in the most conventional of ways, he remains full of surprises. -L.V. Lopez
46. El-P - Cancer 4 Cure
If El-P’s production on Killer Mike’s R.A.P. Music was just restrained enough for Mike to still be the main attraction on the album, his other worldly production on his own album, Cancer4Cure, is front and center. It lends tracks like “Drones Over Bklyn” and “Tougher Colder Killer” an apocalyptic disorientation. This, combined with killer guest verses from the likes of Danny Brown, Despot, Mike, and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire, made for one of the best underground hip hop releases of the year only a week after El-P delivered an instant classic in R.A.P. Music. Cancer4Cure is thankfully distinctly El-P, however, in all of its lyrical grit and grime. -JM
45. Daughn Gibson - All Hell
The post-James Blake world is a new and strange one. Our top-rated album of 2011 left such a mark, it’s not surprising that his original combination of progressive production and soul-bearing ballads would spark interest from across the globe. Enter Daughn Gibson, a drifter and former stoner metal drummer from Carlisle, PA, and his intoxicating debut All Hell. Substituting Blake’s lounge singer sounds with gloomy and glamorous Americana, Gibson sets himself as the “Rhinestone Cowboy” of the electronica age. -Peter Lillis
44. Miike Snow - Happy to You
The Swedish group (yes, it’s a “they”, not a “he”) avoid the sophomore slump with an album that not only rivals its predecessor in amount of hooks, but manages to find a fair amount of experimentation as well, the whole time maintaining a tantalizing balance between rock and dance music. -AH
43. Purity Ring - Shrines
There’s every reason to underestimate Shrines during the first couple listens. A debut album that rolls in on slick, bumping bass beats and candy-coated vocals might not appear to have much underlying substance. But one grasp after the nearly indecipherable and improbable lyrics that make “Fineshrine” one of the album’s best singles (…crawl into my sternum and pull my little ribs around you…) and it’s clear that there’s more going on here. Mostly innocuous lyrics are delivered so as to hint at the sexual without giving anything up, while some extremely capable production gives life to words’ invocations, enshrouding the corporeal imagery in a haze of pop, gloss and shimmer and reminding us why “production” isn’t a bad word. - Tiffany Hairston
42. Dr. John - Locked Down
Mac Renneback and The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach don’t just have rhyming names. Their work together on Locked Down resulted in the most fun listen of the year, as Dr. John took a bluesy page from Auerbach and Danger Mouse and combined it with his signature voodoo and patois, making an album as distinctly New Orleans as it is accessible to anybody. Also, my friend thinks “Ice Age” should soundtrack a spy thriller. - JM
41. The xx - Coexist
While Coexist initially underwhelmed me with its soporific languidness, the record has since worked its way into heavy rotation, a testament both to its subtle power and the fickleness of first impressions. The British trio’s sophomore album is less a collection of distinct songs than a continuous late night DJ set played when everyone in the club or lounge or house party is sprawled on couches, nursing one last drink before dawn. With its slow tempos, sparse electronic percussion, trebly single note guitar lines, whispery co-ed vocals, and repetitive lyrics –the word ‘minimalism’ seems like an understatement, the musical equivalent of a Raymond Carver short story slashed and burned by Gordon Lish. -Keith Meatto
Check back tomorrow for numbers 40-31.
I’m excited to go through these and eagerly anticipate the next ones! Thank you!
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